Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the meaning of terms used in this chapter shall be as follows:
(1) "Biochemical oxygen demand" (BOD) means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure in five days at 20 degrees C, expressed in milligrams per liter.
(2) "Building drain" means that part of the lowest horizontal piping of a drainage system which receives the discharge from soil, waste and other drainage pipes inside the walls of the building and conveys it to the building sewer, beginning five (5) feet (1.5 m) outside the inner face of the building wall.
(3) "Bypass" is an act of intentional noncompliance during which wastewater treatment facilities are circumvented. Any diversion of wastestreams from treatment regardless of emergency or other reason.
(4) "Building sewer" means the extension from the building drain to the public sewer or other place of disposal, also called house connection.
(5) "Categorical pretreatment standards" means National Pretreatment Standards specifying quantities or concentrations for pollutants or pollutant properties which may be discharged or introduced to the sewage works by specific industrial users.
(6) "Chemical oxygen demand" (COD) means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the chemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedures expressed in milligrams per liter.
(7) "Chief, I.P.P." means the Chief of the Industrial Pretreatment Program or his authorized agent.
(8) "Chronic violations" of wastewater discharge limits, defined here as those in which sixty-six percent or more of all of the measurements taken during a six-month period exceed (by any magnitude) the daily maximum limit or the average limit for the same pollutant parameter.
(9) "City" means the City of Ashland, Ohio.
(10) "Combined sewage" means a combination of sanitary sewage and surface or storm water, with or without industrial wastes.
(11) "Combined sewer" shall mean a sewer intended to receive both wastewater and storm or surface water.
(12) "Commercial user" means any user of the sewage system not specifically categorized by the Director of Wastewater Facilities as residential or industrial and generally classified in the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Manual of the United States Office of Management and Budget, as amended and supplemented, in Division F - wholesale trade; Division G - retail trade; Division H - finance, insurance, and real estate; and portions of Division I - services; and Division I - public administration.
(13) "Compatible pollutant" means BOD, suspended solids, pH and fecal coliform bacteria, plus additional pollutants identified in the NPDES permit if the wastewater treatment plant was designed to treat such pollutants, and in fact does remove such pollutants to a substantial degree. Examples of such additional pollutants may include:
(a) COD;
(b) Total organic carbon;
(c) Phosphorus and phosphorus compounds;
(d) Nitrogen and nitrogen compounds; and
(e) Fats, oils and greases of animal or vegetable origin except as prohibited in Section 921.10
(c).
(14) "Cooling waters" means the water discharged from any system of condensation, air conditioning, cooling or refrigeration. It shall be free from odor and oil and shall contain no polluting substances.
(15) "Debt service" means the portion of the sewer service charge that is designated for the retirement of and interest on bonds and/or notes which have either been authorized and issued or which may be authorized and issued by the City of Ashland to construct sewage system facilities.
(16) "Director" means the Director of Wastewater Facilities of the City of Ashland or his authorized agent.
(17) "Domestic waste" means water-borne waste from residences, business buildings, institutions, and industrial establishments contributed by reason of human occupancy and which is discharged from sanitary plumbing facilities.
(18) "Engineer" means the City Engineer of the City of Ashland or his authorized representative.
(19) "Federal Act" or "Act" means the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, Public Law 92-500, and the Clean Water Act of 1977 (PL 95-217) 33 U.S.C. 1241 et. seq., and any amendments thereto; as well as any guidelines, limitations and standards promulgated by the USEPA pursuant to the Act.
(20) "Floatable oil" means oil, fat or grease in a physical state such that it will separate by gravity from wastewater by treatment in an approved pretreatment facility.
(21) "Flow composite" means a composite sample which is a mixture of several individual samples where the volume or frequency of the individual portions is proportional to the flow rate of the stream sampled.
(22) "Garbage" means the animal and vegetable wastes resulting from the handling, preparation, cooking and serving of food.
(23) "Health Department" means the Ashland City/County Health Department.
(24) "Holding tank waste" means any sanitary waste from holding tanks or chambers used in connection with boats, chemical toilets, campers, trailers or other isolated facilities from which sanitary wastes emanate. The definition includes sanitary wastes from septic tanks and vacuum pump tank trucks.
(25) "I.P.P. " means the City of Ashland's Industrial Pretreatment Program.
(26) "Incompatible pollutant" means any pollutant which is not a compatible pollutant as defined above.
(27) "Industrial user" means any source of non-domestic wastewater regulated under section 307(b), (c) or (d) of the Act.
(28) "Industrial wastes" means the solid, liquid or gaseous waste resulting from any industrial, manufacturing, trade or business process; or from the development, recovery or processing of natural resources as distinct from sanitary sewage.
(29) "Interference" means a discharge which alone or in conjunction with a discharge or discharges from other sources, both:
(a) Inhibits or disrupts the POTW, its sludge processes, use or disposal; and
(b) Therefore is a cause of a violation of any requirement of the POTW's NPDES permit (including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation) or the prevention of sewage sludge use or disposal.
(30) "Inspector" means any authorized agent designated by the City such as the Building and Zoning Inspector.
(31) "mg/l" means milligrams per liter.
(32) "Significant Industrial User" means:
(a) Except as provided in part (b) of this section, the term Significant Industrial User includes:
(1) All industrial users subject to national categorical pretreatment standards; and,
(2) Any other industrial user that:
(i) Discharges an average of 25,000 gallons per day (GAD) (95,000 Liters/day) or more of process wastewater to the POTW, or
(ii) Contributes a process wastestream which makes up five (5) percent or more of the average dry weather hydraulic or organic capacity of the treatment plant; or has a reasonable potential, in the opinion of the control or approval authority, to adversely affect the publicly owned treatment plant's operation or for violating any pretreatment standard or requirement.
(b) The Director may at any time, on his own initiative or in response to a petition received from an industrial user, determine that a noncategorical industrial user is not a Significant Industrial User if the industrial user has no reasonable potential to adversely affect the POTW's operation or for violating any pretreatment standard or requirement.
(33) "Minor significant industry" in Ashland's program is an industrial user which is not regulated by categorical pretreatment standards and is not in the opinion of the control or approval authority likely to adversely affect the publicly owned treatment works.
(34) "Natural outlet" means any outlet, including storm sewers and overflows, into a watercourse, pond, ditch, lake or other body of surface or groundwater.
(35) "New source" means any building, structure, facility or installation from which there is or may be a discharge of pollutants, the construction of which commenced after the publication of proposed pretreatment standards under Section 307(c) of the Act which will be applicable to such source if such Standards are thereafter promulgated in accordance with that section, provided that:
(a) The building, structure, facility or installation is constructed at a site at which no other source is located; or
(b) The building, structure, facility or installation totally replaces the process or production equipment that causes the discharge of pollutants at an existing source; or
(c) The production or wastewater generating processes of the building, structure, facility or installation are substantially independent of an existing source at the same site. In determining whether those are substantially independent, factors such as the extent to which the new facility is integrated with the existing plant, and the extent to which the new facility is engaged in the same general type of activity as the existing source should be considered.
(36) "Non-significant dischargers" are those which offer very little potential of exceeding background pollutant levels in the sanitary sewer system and are similar to domestic discharge in nature.
(37) "Normal sewage or wastes" means sewage having an average daily suspended solids and BOD concentration not in excess of the "assigned sewage strength" specified for classes of users in 923.04 of the City's codified ordinances.
(38) "NPDES permit" means the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit as issued to the City or any other dischargers to waters of the State.
(39) "OEPA" means the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
(40) "Operation and maintenance" means the act of keeping all facilities for collecting, pumping, treating, and disposing of sewage in a good state of repair and functioning properly including the replacement as defined below, of said facilities when necessary.
(41) "Pass-through" means a discharge which exits the POTW into waters of the United States in quantities or concentrations which, alone or in conjunction with a discharge or discharges from other sources, is a cause of a violation of any requirement of the POTW's NPDES permit (including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation).
(42) "Person" means any individual, firm, company, association, society, corporation or group. For a corporation, a person shall be a company officer directly in charge of wastewater discharges.
(43) "pH" means the reciprocal of the logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration. The concentration is the weight of hydrogen ions, in grams, per liter of solution. Neutral water, for example, has a pH value of 7 and a hydrogen ion concentration of 10^-7
(44) "Pollutant" means dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, wastewater, garbage, wastewater sludge, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt and industrial, municipal and agricultural waste discharged into water.
(45) "POTW" means Publicly Owned Treatment Works.
(46) "Premises" means any parcel of real estate or portion of real estate, including any improvements, determined by the Director to be a single user for purposes of receiving, using and paying for services.
(47) "Pretreatment" means the reduction in the amount of pollutants, the elimination of pollutants, or the alteration of the nature of pollutant properties in wastewater to a less harmful state, prior to or in lieu of discharging such pollutants to the sewage works.
(48) "Private sewer" means a sewer in which all owners of abutting properties do not have equal rights, and which is not controlled by public authority.
(49) "Properly shredded garbage" means the wastes from the preparation, cooking and dispensing of food that have been shredded to such a degree that all particles shall be carried freely under the flow conditions normally prevailing in public sewers.
(50) "Public sewer" means a common sewer controlled by a governmental agency or public utility.
(51) "Replacement" means expenditures for obtaining and installing equipment, accessories, or appurtenances which are necessary during the useful life of the sewage system to maintain the capacity and performance for which such system was designed and constructed.
(52) "Residential user" means any user discharging domestic wastes from buildings or premises that are used as permanent places for human occupancy such as single family dwellings, row-houses, townhouses, mobile homes, garden and standard apartments, and high rise apartments. Transient lodging, considered commercial in nature, is not included.
(53) "Sampling event" means a visit to the facilities, plant or site for the purpose of obtaining a wastewater sample including, if necessary, the installation of temporary sampling and/or flow metering devices and any return trip to monitor sampling equipment operation, collect samples or remove the monitoring devices.
(54) "Sanitary sewage" means sewage containing a combination of water-carried wastes from residences, business establishments, institutions and industrial establishments contributed by reason of human occupancy.
(55) "Sanitary sewer" means a sewer that carries liquid and water-carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants and institutions. Groundwater, surface water and subsurface water shall not be conducted into any sanitary sewer.
(56) "Sewage" or "wastes" means all substances (liquid, solid, gaseous or radioactive) associated with human habitation or of human or animal origin; or from any producing, manufacturing or processing operation of any nature, including substances placed within containers of any nature prior to, and for purposes of, disposal.
(57) "Sewer service charge" means the total charge which is assessed users of the sewage system. The sewer service charge includes user charges plus the cost of debt service, the cost of collection and treatment of infiltration and inflow and any other cost that is incurred by the City of Ashland in the operation of the sewage system.
(58) "Sewage works" or "treatment works" means all facilities for collecting, pumping, transporting, treating and disposing of sanitary sewage and industrial wastes.
(59) "Shall" is mandatory; "May" is permissive.
(61) "Slugload" means any pollutant, including oxygen demanding pollutants (BOD, etc.) which released in a Discharge at a flow rate and/or pollutant concentration which will cause interference with the POTW.
(62) "Standard Industrial classification" or "SIC" means the classification of users based on the 1987 "Standard Industrial Classification Manual" as amended and supplemented by the Office of Manpower and Budget of the United States of America.
(63) "Standard Methods" means the laboratory procedures specified in the latest edition of "Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater," prepared and published jointly by the American Public Health Association, the American Water Works Association and the Water Pollution Control Federation.
(64) "Storm drain" or "storm sewer" means a drain or sewer for conveying water, groundwater, surface water, subsurface water or unpolluted water from any source.
(65) "Suspended solids" means total suspended matter that either floats on the surface of, or is in suspension in, water, wastewater, sewage or other liquids, and that is removable by laboratory filtering as prescribed in "Standards Methods. "
(66) "Technical Review Criteria" or "(TRC)" violations, defined here as those in which thirty-three percent or more of all of the measurements for each pollutant parameter taken during a six-month period equal or exceed the product of the daily maximum limit or the average limit multiplied by the applicable TRC (TRC = 1.4 for BOD, TSS, fats, oil and grease, and 1.2 for all other pollutants except pH). See Section 921.90
- Annual Publication.
(67) "Time composite" means a mixture of several individual samples where the volume of individual portions is constant and taken at specified equal time intervals.
(68) "Toxic pollutant" means any pollutant designated by federal regulations pursuant to Section 307 of the Federal Act including, but not limited to, aldrindieldrin, benzidine, cadmium, cyanide, DDT-endrin, mercury, poly-chlorinated biphenyls (PCB's) and toxaphene.
(69) "Unpolluted water" means water of quality equal to or better than the effluent criteria in effect or water that would not cause violation of receiving water quality standards and would not be benefited by discharge to the City's sanitary sewers and wastewater treatment plant.
(70) "Upset", sometimes called an "excursion," is an exceptional incident in which a Discharger unintentionally and temporarily is in a state of noncompliance with the pollution standards set forth herein due to factors beyond the reasonable control of the Discharger, and excluding noncompliance to the extent caused by operational error, improperly designed treatment facilities, inadequate treatment facilities, lack of preventive maintenance, or careless or improper operation thereof.
(71) "USEPA" means the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
(72) "User" means any person that discharges, causes or permits the discharge of wastewater into a public sewer.
(73) "User charge" means the charge assessed users of the sewage system to recover a user's proportionate share of the cost of operation, maintenance, and replacement of the sewage system pursuant to regulations of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
(74) "Utility billing charge" means the portion of the sewer service charge that is determined by the Director for the recovery of the cost of meter reading, billing and collecting and accounting for sewer service charges.
(75) "Wastewater" means the spent water of a community. From the standpoint of source, it may be a combination of the liquid and water-carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants and institutions.
(76) "Wastewater treatment plant" means the arrangement of devices and structures for treating wastewater, industrial wastes and sludge. Sometimes used synonymous with "treatment plant," "POTW," "sewage treatment plant" or "water pollution control facility. "
(77) "Waters of the State" means any water, surface or underground, including saline waters, within the boundaries of the State.